[Layton13]

Ok, let's first agree with you on something.

This is 100% the writers trying to create something out of nearly nothing with their rivalry.

That said...

It still results in the best dynamic the show spawned?

At least for me.

There is actually some meat to this! Subtext! Actual stuff that works!

It takes aspects from the show and mirrors them in a way never intended, but it fits flawlessly.

Olteca and George are surprisingly similar, intelligent people with shitty father figures that messed them up big time.

George strove forward on his own, becoming a dubious scientist who was willing to sacrifice everyone for his goals.

Olteca was supported by a father figure but showed himself to be the exact same cruel monster, pushing everyone away till he was just as alone.

Both are the smartest person in the room, partially because they are indeed quite smart but also because they have the ego for it.

The simple difference is George ultimately learned to move on. To evolve and become someone else in the process. Someone better. Not completely new, but a better person and, ultimately, Kamen Rider.

Olteca hasn't. He is still the exact same person, unable to cope with the fact that the world has moved on. That everything he thought was certain has shifted, and because of that is now alone.

And... my god, does it work for me!

He has become anti-character growth! Perpetually stuck to be beaten down by people who grow. He'll only grow weaker and weaker compared to them.

And the special makes it feel like George knows that. That's why he gives him the time of day to mock him. He actively sees himself in him to an extent. And, even if he can't stand him, he wants him to grow past it.

And it mixes wonderfully with the story the special tells. Of someone so bitter, his hatred extends to even the next generation. He is Olteca if he stays on that path.

It also somehow manages to merge all three major versions of Geroge and create something cohesive.

He's still overconfident to the extreme, has no qualms in manipulating people to get what he wants, and lording his superiority over them like when he first showed up. Yet, he clearly has managed to focus this into something constructive, not destructive, which mirrors the middle of the show George and he still clearly has made peace with who his father was, like the end of his "arc".

These two characters I want to see more off.

This special takes the broken pieces of Revice and pieces something cohesive and great out of it!

It says something about family without spouting platitudes and surface-level nothingness. It manages to write these characters cohesively. And it manages to achieve what it sets out to do without any major missteps.

To me, at least, that is peak Revice!